


Duisburg - The stream

by Snowingiron



Series: German Cities [3]
Category: Paris Burning (thecitysmith)
Genre: F/M, Paris Burning, Witch Trials
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-25
Updated: 2013-09-25
Packaged: 2017-12-27 14:35:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/980059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snowingiron/pseuds/Snowingiron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of a City who smiles and jokes because he cannot dwell on things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Duisburg - The stream

**Author's Note:**

> Duisburg has always loved water and he liked the feeling of it rushing through his veins. The Rhein, a river, made him a hanseatic city and not only his own people but people from different parts of the world visited him. Oh, he loved everything new and the excitement they brought with them. That’s how he met London, Antwerp and Brussels and he still writes them letters, whenever he feels like it… which is not very often. They got used to it.  
> During the St. Mary Magdalene’s flood in 1342 he had felt like he was drowning. The following famine and eventually the black death still left their marks on him. No city likes to show it’s body, not when it’s that old and suffered for so long… Duisburg didn’t give a fuck and wouldn’t do so in the future. He loved swimming.

 

He was there when Barbarossa left Dortmund. It was one of the two times Dortmund had cried in all his life. The other moment lay far into the future.

 

"I can't stop crying," Dortmund said while Duisburg rubbed the space between his shoulder blades.

 

"Then don't stop. Let it wash over you, as long as you need it to, and then smile like you don't know the meaning of sadness."

 

Dortmund laughed but it sounded more like a sob. "It won't be real, though."

 

Duisburg sighed. "Well, but who will ever know?"

 

*

 

Duisburg didn't know how to fake emotions. It was hard to make him sad, to make him cry, not even when all of his people suffered. He always managed to raise an honest smile.

 

At least they were alive.

 

*

 

He knew how Dortmund tried to hide the scars of the fire, how Bochum coughed dust. He knew how damaged most Cities were. The flood had marked him terribly and it would take time for it to fade away. He still swam in the river though, because the water never changed and was always barbaric. It didn't pick favourites.

 

After that, he would walk back naked. They would see how most of his back was black. A few of his ribs would always show, the flesh never grew back. He didn't mind. He really didn't.

 

Because in the end, it could always get worse.

 

*

 

Damn himself.

 

*

 

The war was several years old, when he started to feel something else under his skin. There already was chillness but he had grown thinner. Every night he would count the ribs he felt standing out. Every night there was one more.  
One day he even locked himself into one of his people's houses and ate and ate until he vomited. People stood in the doorframe, looking at him, covering mouths with their hands.

 

He couldn't stop eating. He ate until there was nothing left.

 

"I need more," he sobbed.

 

"I am so sorry. There is no food left," a man answered.

 

Duisburg looked at him with hungry eyes.

 

*

 

One day he woke up and his shoulders were black, too. He felt people dying, but it was just an echo.

He smiled at the people he had left and kissed a maiden's cheek to make her smile as well.

 

"It could always get worse,“ he told her.

 

He really, _really_ needed to shut up.

 

*

 

He always had had children. They were the best of his life. Death wasn't sad, if it came naturally and he was happy to have them for a lifetime. Each and everyone of them had inherited his wanderlust (a word he would replace with 'Fernweh' in the future) and most of them hadn't been home in years. They still wrote him letters, from places they had been and he felt like he could be with them on all their journeys.

 

He knew something was wrong when the letters stopped.

 

*

 

"Witches," Gelsenkirchen said. "This is why they kill them. They think the children of Cities are witches. They know too much about... before."

 

Duisburg held Essen's hand. Her body was destroyed by the war. She could only open one of her eyes, her lungs made rattling noises. They didn't know if she would survive.

 

"Witches... this is absurd," he looked at Gelsenkirchen. His expression was always so calm, his hands buried in the opposite sleeves of his habit. Gelsenkirchen lived and looked like a monk. He didn't know the feeling of being a father. He was a City of god. Essen didn't know either, she would always be the virgin City. Only Dortmund watched him with knowing eyes. "How can we stop this?"

 

"We can't." Essen's voice was nothing like he remembered. "Can we ever... deny them what they w... want? They believe... they do the right thing."

 

Duisburg couldn't hold back his tears as Dortmund lay a hand on the back of his neck.

 

"We like to think that we're better. But we're really not."

 

*

 

When you think that the last chance for Cities and humanity is Weimar, then you're really screwed.

 

*

 

By the time he reached Weimar, six of his children were dead. Some of them had been beheaded. Some had been burned. Mostly both.

 

"What makes you think I can help you?" Weimar wore a black dress, like she was in mourning. But she smiled.

 

"You have more children than any of us. The people love you, so you have to help me stop this! We thought it only is the church who orders the trials. But it's the people, most of the time."

 

Weimar sighed. "Let me rephrase that: What makes you think I _will_ help you?"

 

He stared at her. "We're brothers and sisters. Don't you feel their pain? The people aren't always right."

 

Something in her expression faltered. What was an amused smile before, turned now into a murderous purse of her lips.

 

"If they want it, it's their right... The people are my children, too. Tell me, Duisburg: Do you pick favourites?"

 

*

 

She was the only child he had left. She was barely nine and he carried her in his arms while they walked across a field.

 

He had cut her hair and left it at her old home. Maybe they wouldn't look for her, if they thought she was already dead. She had cried, because she loved her hair, so he had done the same to himself.

 

"See? Now we both have short hair."

 

She smiled at him the same way he sometimes did.

 

*

 

He thought of the worst thing that ever happened to him: the feeling of drowning.

 

Right now, he would drown thousands of times, again and again, if it would save her.

 

*

 

" _Papa_!“

 

They wrestled her from his arms in Cologne, he couldn't hold on to her. He was too weak.

 

They wouldn't kill her, yet. Every witch would get a trial. But he couldn't even hold her until it was over.

 

He still heard her screams, wherever he went.

 

*

 

Cities gathered in Rome, raising their voices. Duisburg was with them, lifting his fist and shouting for a change. It took days, weeks maybe, until a white figure appeared at the window.  
  
The pope issued a decree: the sanctity of a cities' offspring's life.

 

It was too late for his children. Too late for every son or daugther that had died so far. Brussels squeezed his shoulder. "Let's go home.“

 

*

 

He cried for a long time and didn't want to stop. He let it wash over him, as long as he needed it to, and then smiled like he didn't know the meaning of sadness.

 

Well... it could be worse.

**Author's Note:**

> recently TheCitysmith decided that Cities can't have children, so this is some kind of AU :)


End file.
